Football Injuries: Measuring the Blows

Inside the offices of X2Impact, a two-year-old Seattle startup, sits a contraption that harks back to medieval times. The rig, fashioned out of metal scaffolding, yanks a football helmet high into the air and then hurls it into a stationary mount. WHACK! The sight alone is enough to induce a migraine.

That’s as it should be, considering X2Impact is trying to build a business around head trauma. Founders Christoph Mack, an inventor-for-hire who has worked with companies such as Nike, Apple, and Whirlpool, and Rich Able, a technology consultant whose son was knocked out cold during a football game, are seeking a better understanding of the cumulative toll that hits to the head take on athletes. When a player goes down, “everyone pores over the game video to find that one hit,” says Mack. “Well, the hit that led to the injury actually happened two weeks prior when the athlete tried to do a host of extraordinary things to get the coaches’ attention.”